Is America Hungry for Non-Profit Leaders?
Bob Herbert of the New York Times offers a compelling analysis of last week’s election results:
Our leaders in Washington seem entirely out of touch with the needs, the hopes, the fears and the anxieties of the millions of Americans who are out of work, who are struggling with their mortgages or home foreclosures, who are skimping on needed medication in order to keep food on the table, and who lie awake at night worrying about what the morning will bring. No one even dares mention the poor.
What this election tells me is that real leadership will have to come from elsewhere, from outside of Washington, perhaps from elected officials in statehouses or municipal buildings that are closer to the people, from foundations and grass-roots organizations, from the labor movement and houses of worship and community centers.
The last line really stuck with me.
Of course non-profits can grow to be so large and so powerful that they become just as out of touch as the government. Yet many non-profits are small, often started with the goal of addressing a specific concern in a specific area (leading, often, to charges of redundancy and calls for more collaboration and mergers). Non-profits have felt the impact of the recession not only in terms of smaller budgets but also in terms of increase in demands of services.
So who best to talk about the needs of people than those who watch lines getting longer for the saturday soup kitchen; those who notice more people signing up for free job/resume classes; those who help more people fill out applications for support services; those who have more people visiting the emergency room instead of a doctor because of lapse in health care; those who are offering more programs to teens because jobs are no longer available; those who are counseling adults who are out of work and feeling emotionally vulnerable. These little markers, which get lost in big conversations about problems and progress, add faces and stories to the numbers about unemployment and the social breakdown that follows.
And often non-profits are fore front of this story telling. However, our focus is on telling stories to raise more money to provide more services. The economic crisis has turned us away from the larger picture of social change to focus on the smaller, yet still important issue of survival. In the long term, does this do more harm than good for the people we serve? Is the election a call for us to use our stories for something else? With our political leaders running in circles, perhaps its time we use our experience and expertise to provide much needed guidance.
This is not to say that a relationship or push for political change won’t be messy or complicated. For example, in DC while Michelle Rhee was chancellor of education, she developed relationships with foundations that many thought were problematic. But clearly, there is a space in our national conversation on progress where non-profits are needed and can have a major impact.
What role do non-profits have in guiding the country out of this social and economic crisis?
Nonprofits have the same responsibility that they have always had: to fill the gaps of service that the government couldn’t. I think the disconnect has occurred not in current financial situation, but in years of “navel-gazing” where folks were too concerned in addressing their own “issue” rather than banning together with others to solver greater issues. I think we can all agree that issues like poverty and education are inextricably linked. But what about climate change and environmental justice? We need to think more broadly about how we can use our limited resources to collectively help our neighbors. If we continue living in silos, then we can only expect to join politicians in running in circles..
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ajlovesya Reply:
November 11th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
I think part of the reason folks began focusing on smaller issues is because from an implementation stand point the more specific you are the more feasible it is to address a problem, especially when we take into consideration how diverse the people we serve are. The reality is, for example, education for rural and urban communities is very different not only because of poverty but also because of geography. At the same I think there are moments when we should come together to pool our knowledge and experiences to inform policy changes and each other’s work. Also, personally, I get very worried when folks say that their organization is going to eradicate poverty. Too big, undefined, and unfortunately, likely to fail.
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Amen, Allison. When I heard the election outcomes, my first thought was that now I need to redouble my advocacy for the nonprofit sector and be even more deliberate with my charitable contributions. We’re lucky to live in a country that has a thriving nonprofit sector, even as our federal government hogties itself. Not every country has the luxury of a civil society safety net.
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ajlovesya Reply:
November 11th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
I love your description of the nonprofit sector as a civil society safety net. I also think it brings up an important point about the relationship between non-profits and the government. Lately I’ve been hearing talks about whether bigger government is bad for non-profits as it will assume the work/role that non-profits normally fill. My concern has never been about size of government but about the presence of non-profits in determining the size and direction of government. While we certainly have a relationship, how often do we think about our own work, power, and future?
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